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Bill Gates 'will not leave a fortune for his children'

Last updated: 20 September, 2010

London, Sept 20 (PTI)

Bill Gates, one of the world's richest men, has said that he is not interested in using his billions to launch a dynasty and would not leave his fortune to his children.

The 54-year-old father of three, worth an estimated 34 billion pounds, has unleashed his planetsized brain and the extraordinary dynamism that made Microsoft the all-conquering global software giant to defeat global poverty.

Gates and his wife Melinda, 44, have three children -- Jennifer, 14, Rory, 11, and eight-year-old Phoebe. "I knew I didn't think it was a good idea to give the money to my kids. That wouldn't be good either for my kids or society. So the question was, 'Can I find something that had incredible impact?' I knew I wanted to do that," Gates was quoted by 'The Sun' as saying.

So far, Gates and his wife, through their foundation, have given away 18 billion pounds which has helped deliver vaccines to more than 250 million children in poor countries, preventing an estimated five million deaths. "In the 1960s over 20million children died a year. Now that number's down to somewhere between eight and nine million -- clearly that's incredible progress. I like to get to Africa and India at least once a year. I really like having a hands- on experience. I'm not well known in these countries."

However, as for the inheritance of his children, Gates said: "I will give the kids some money but not a meaningful percentage. Setting the number so that they need to work but they feel reasonably taken care of is hard to figure out."